Agroforestry Director at One Acre Fund

One Acre, founded in 2006, supplies smallholder farmers with the agricultural services they need to make their farms more productive. We provide quality farm supplies on credit, delivered within walking distance of farmers’ homes, and agricultural trainings to improve harvests. We measure our success by our ability to make farmers more prosperous: On average, farmers harvest 50 percent more food after working with One Acre Fund. We serve more than 800,000 farm families in Eastern and Southern Africa, with more than 7,500 full-time staff, and we aim to serve 1 million farm families by 2020.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Agroforestry Director

Location: Kigali, Rwanda (flexible within our countries of operation)
Preferred Start Date: As soon as possible

About the Role

• Smallholder farm families are at the nexus of several of this century’s defining challenges: extreme poverty, climate change, and biodiversity loss.
• The challenges of subsistence farming are compounded by an volatile climate and declining ecological health.
• As stewards of the land, smallholders can help end the cycle of degradation if they are equipped with the right tools, support, and motivation.
• You will help us address this challenge through agroforestry and Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR). Specifically, you will improve existing programs that currently serve more than 2 million farm families and produce over 70 million seedlings per year.
• You will also have ample opportunity to innovate new approaches to generate positive change for farm families and the environment.
• The Director of Agroforestry will directly supervise a dedicated international agroforestry team, will co-lead embedded agroforestry teams in each country program in collaboration with senior program leaders, and will report to the Impact Director

Responsibilities
Build vision and implement impactful FLR programs, aimed at planting 1 billion trees by 2030 in a way that generates meaningful impact:

• Work with leaders and teams across 10 markets to develop and refine the strategy in each country to maximize impact (outcomes for landholders and the environment) from our tree planting programs.

• Assess the main levers for reaching primary goals including scale (1 billion trees by 2030), cost-effective impact (SROI), climate resilience, and ecological restoration.

Lead engagement and build relationships to accelerate scale and impact:

• Lead external engagement related to our agroforestry work. You will help us build our network in the agroforestry and the climate sector. You will work with senior leaders to expand our network of funding partners and secure funding to grow operations.

• Explore new programmatic and/or technical partnerships to expand our network of farmers, improve the quality of our programs, and identify new opportunities.

Develop and Oversee New Initiatives to Broaden and Deepen Impact for Farmers and the Environment:

• Identify, pilot, and scale new investments to improve program impact and reach. You could bolster our growing Payments for Ecosystem Service programs, explore additional economic opportunities associated with non-timber forest products, or launch entirely new programs.

Career Growth and Development:

• We have a strong culture of constant learning and we invest in developing our people.
• You’ll have weekly check-ins with your manager, access to mentorship and training programs, and regular feedback on your performance.
• We hold career reviews every six months, and set aside time to discuss your aspirations and career goals.
• You’ll have the opportunity to shape a growing organization and build a rewarding long-term career.

Qualifications
Across all roles, these are the general qualifications we look for. For this role specifically, you will have:

Experience in Agroforestry and Landscape Restoration:

• University or Advanced Degrees in Agroforestry, Ecology, Restoration, or related fields
• 5+ years of leadership and demonstrated results in agroforestry, restoration, or related domains in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Familiarity with nature-based carbon projects, including implementation and certification.

External Relationships:

• Exceptional written and verbal communication to engage a range of audiences, including rural farmers, internal staff, external partners, and organizational leadership.
• History of collaboration with primary actors in the forestry and landscape restoration sectors, including implementers, technical resources, and policy-makers.
• Experience launching new programs or building successful partnerships.

Management Skills:

• Experience managing high-level team members and coordinating complex and scalable programs.
• Penchant for data-driven decision-making with structured analysis and fact-based recommendations.
• Experience with multi-year, multi-project budgeting and planning.

Other:

• Willingness to travel within the region up to 25% of the time.
• English Fluency. Other preferred languages include Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Chichewa, Amhar.

Eligibility:

• One Acre Fund can support a work permit for this role. However, nationals of (or those with an extensive professional background and work history in) our countries of operation are preferred.

Benefits
Health insurance, housing, and comprehensive benefits.

Application Closing Date
23rd January, 2024.